Festival screenings and cultural events will take place in St. Petersburg from October 16 to 24, marking the 36th edition of the festival. Alongside the competition screenings, 12 special programmes and special screenings will play an important role in the festival’s lineup. They include new films by Sun Xun, Brecht Debacker, Pyotr Shepotinnik, Anton Zhelnov, Ilya Khotinenko, and Slava Fedorov; silent classics with live music and synchronized commentary; and many other premieres.
This year’s curated programmes include rare retrospectives and restorations of archival works, premiere films from different countries, and new works by young Russian directors. Each programme offers its own perspective on documentary, fiction, and experimental cinema. As usual, familiar programmes that audiences know well will be joined by new projects and curators.
The anniversary programmes include a retrospective of documentary cinema master Herz Frank on the occasion of his 100th birthday; a programme of films from the Leningrad Documentary School in memory of cinematographer Pyotr Mostovoy (1938–2026); and an extensive programme dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the first photograph.
The special screenings programme features five international premieres, two classic silent films from 1926—F. W. Murnau’s Faust and Teinosuke Kinugasa’s A Page of Madness—with live accompaniment, as well as premieres of Russian fiction and non-fiction films.
Among the Russian premieres are Magic Atlas, the feature-length animated debut by Chinese artist Sun Xun; Brecht Debacker’s Nostalgia for the Future; and the experimental found-footage film ADGIN PRRX, which will be presented by Austrian artist Norbert Pfaffenbichler.
A historic event for the festival will be the world premiere of Marlen Khutsiev’s final film, Unfading Dawn. Dedicated to the meetings between Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, the film was in production for more than ten years but remained unfinished during the director’s lifetime. In 2025, to mark Marlen Khutsiev’s anniversary, work on Unfading Dawn resumed at the initiative of his friends and colleagues. In 2026, the film was completed at mal de mer films under the supervision of Ali Khamraev and Naum Kleiman. The editor was Andrey Natotsinsky.
Twin Peaks
The names of Bruno Dumont and Hirokazu Kore-eda need no introduction. The other films in the programme demonstrate the same degree of creative freedom, virtuoso craftsmanship, and playful engagement with genre. Both in content and form, these films are truly peaks, and audiences can look forward to an engaging intellectual and emotional ascent.
Still from Bruno Dumont’s Red Rocks
Between Photography and Cinema
Curator: Alisa Nasrtdinova
A special programme marking the 200th anniversary of the first photograph.
What happens to photography when it enters the flow of cinematic time, and what happens to cinema when it turns to the still image? The programme features films by French and international filmmakers made in France, from Chris Marker’s La Jetée and Agnès Varda’s Ulysse to Raymond Depardon’s Reporters, as well as experimental works by Man Ray and Maria Kourkouta.
Still from Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962)
“One Eye Dry, the Other Wet”. Marking the Centenary of Herz Frank
Curator: Ruslan Simakov
2026 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Herz Frank, one of the great masters of non-fiction cinema. To mark the director’s centenary, Message to Man presents a retrospective of his work. The programme is supported by the Kinora Foundation.
Through a selection of films, the programme traces the creative path of a director who believed that a documentarian has no right to be indifferent, but must convey to the audience a testimony of what they have seen with their own eyes. Herz Frank remained faithful to the principle of impartial filming while never abandoning his own authorial perspective on his subjects.
The programme includes not only Herz Vulfovich’s landmark works but also lesser-known films, some of which have never been shown on the big screen in Russia. It opens with The Last Judgement (1987), screened on 35 mm film, continues with the master’s short films, and concludes with the premiere of the digital restoration of Flashback (2002).
Still from Ten Minutes Older (1978)
New Voices
Curator: Mikhail Ratgauz
“New Voices” has always sought to present cinema that speaks in its own languages.
A distinctive, unmistakable voice can be heard in Diego Hernández’s A Skyless Roof and in Dasha Likhaya’s new film a sea, a sea, a sea, a sea, her first venture into feature-length filmmaking. This year, however, the programme also includes films that speak more directly and clearly; what unites them is a sense of inevitability and necessity. This may be demanded by the times, as in Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s The Sundays, which considers Christianity as a possibility in a world where all possibilities seem to have long been exhausted (winner of the Grand Prix at the San Sebastián Festival and the Goya Award for Best Film). Or the necessity may be internal, as in Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s Algerican Road, where an established filmmaker, active for many years, continues to follow his solitary path with rigor and persistence, beyond the demands of the festival circuit.
Still from The Sundays, directed by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, 2025
Panorama.doc
Curator: Ivan Labutin
“Panorama.doc” is a regular festival programme showcasing the diversity of forms and ideas in non-fiction cinema.
This year’s programme features documentary films from the lineups of some of the world’s leading festivals. They include Franco Maresco’s experimental mockumentary Un film fatto per Bene / Bravo Bene!; the moving cinematic homage Kim Novak’s Vertigo; Broken English, an innovative biopic of singer Marianne Faithfull (all three films were presented at the 2025 Venice Film Festival); Yo, Love Is the Rebellious Bird, the only documentary in the 2026 Berlinale competition; and Secret Mall Apartment, a hit on the American festival circuit directed by Jeremy Workman.
Still from Franco Maresco’s Un film fatto per Bene / Bravo Bene!
In Search of the Transcendent
Curator: Sergey Deshin
Films by filmmakers open to searching for the inexpressible, the mysterious, and the sacred, taking viewers beyond the limits of what can be understood within this world alone.
“The transcendent is that which lies beyond human existence, the material world, and sensory experience,” says a philosophical dictionary. This curated programme seeks to introduce new directors who continue the great tradition of the transcendent in world cinema. It features films from Mexico, Iran, Syria, Israel, and Russia.
Still from Against Nature, directed by Axel Berta, 2026
Prompted Reality
Curators: Mikhail Zheleznikov and Anastasia Senchenko. Discussion moderated by Maria Kuvshinova.
Throughout cinema history, directors have exploited, exposed, ridiculed, and undermined our belief that documentary footage is an exact imprint of reality. This programme invites audiences to consider why and how documentary filmmakers were writing and exploring the prompt of reality long before the advent of AI. It features films by Luis Buñuel, Standish Lawder, John Smith, Chris Marker, Frank Heath, Mihai Grecu, Vincent Boy Kars, Sid Yandovka, and others.
Still from Exit From The Lumière Factory, directed by Sid Yandovka, 2026
Developing. The Leningrad School of Documentary Cinema
Curators: Vitalina Zakharova and Maksim Matvienko
Dedicated to the memory of outstanding cinematographer Pyotr Mostovoy (1938–2026), this programme presents films made by the Leningrad Documentary Film Studio (LSDF) from the 1960s to the 1990s. The programme is supported by the Guild of Non-Fiction Cinema and Television.
Four screenings will explore four decades, from the Thaw to the post-Soviet era. Like other Soviet film studios, the Leningrad Documentary Film Studio operated within the state commission system. Documentary filmmakers recorded city events and reported on the achievements of Leningrad’s factories and plants. Yet more personal, auteur cinema also emerged within the studio system, attentive to everyday life and to people within their historical moment. The films in the programme were made by different directors at different times, but they share a poetic approach to everyday life, a humanist tone, and an interest in the gap between the official image of reality and lived human experience.
Still from Difficult Lads, directed by Mikhail Litvyakov, 1966
Land of Precarious Living: A Retrospective of 1990s Siberian Documentary Cinema
Curators: Nikita Dobrynin and Alexander Podbornov
The collapse of an era inevitably became a central theme in films produced by the East Siberian and West Siberian Newsreel Studios. The programme is supported by the Kinora Foundation.
Today, these works are almost unknown in Russia, although they once received awards at European film festivals. In the 1990s, many prints were discarded due to a lack of storage space, but recently, copies once thought lost forever have been found. The first of the two screenings brings together little-known works by Boris Shunkov and Valery Khomenko. The second is devoted entirely to Vladimir Eisner, a master of Russian non-fiction cinema whose films combine personal stories into a merciless collective portrait of an era.
Still from Obsession, directed by Boris Shunkov (1992)
Multiverse: Stories and Fairy Tales
Curators: Vasily Stepanov, Diana Abu Yusef, and Katerina Beloglazova
The “Multiverse” programme is a space for cinematic exploration.
This year, two Multiverse screenings explore narrative practices: one section is called “Stories,” the other “Fairy Tales.” “Fairy Tales” lead into a dense forest, where paths twist and the laws of everyday life cease to apply. These are stories shaped by myth and enchantment, unafraid of fiction but instead placing their full trust in it. “Stories,” by contrast, depict life without unnecessary fantasy, looking closely at the personal, the familiar, the almost domestic. Their power lies not in miracles but in the precision of their gaze—in the ability to discern drama or tenderness where, at first glance, nothing out of the ordinary seems to be happening.
Still from Stallion and a Crystal Ball, directed by Cristian Aviles, 2026
Young Russian Cinema
Curators: Vasily Stepanov, Diana Abu Yusef, Katerina Beloglazova, Alena Solntseva, and Pavel Pugachev
“Young Russian Cinema” is a regular opportunity to discover new Russian short films, both fiction and documentary.
The programme includes both debut filmmakers and directors who have already won awards at Message to Man. The two screenings have been assembled by the curators of the National and International Competitions. One of the main themes of “Young Russian Cinema” this year is kinship, spaces of memory, and the unfathomably personal.
Still from Empty Places, directed by Alexey Chamin, 2025
Cinema+
“Standing on the threshold of yet another technological revolution, we decided to show two outstanding films made a hundred years ago, roughly as audiences would have seen them in 1926.” — Mikhail Zheleznikov
Faust, directed by F. W. Murnau, silent, Germany, 1926. The film will be accompanied by live music performed by Denis Ringo, Ksyusha Burova, and Andrey Figa.
A Page of Madness, directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa, silent, Japan, 1926. The film will be accompanied by a traditional benshi commentary by actress Tomomi Orita and live koto music performed by Elena Skvortsova.
Still from Faust, directed by F. W. Murnau, 1926
Special Screenings
Still from Unfading Dawn, 2026
Magic Atlas, directed by Sun Xun, Singapore, 2026. Russian premiere of a feature-length animation by the renowned artist, a recent participant in and award winner at Message to Man. Sun Xun spent ten years drawing this vivid, eclectic, utterly singular film.
Unfading Dawn, 2026, Russia. World premiere. Directed by Marlen Khutsiev, starring Mikhail Pakhomenko and Vladislav Vetrov. The film was completed by artistic supervisors Ali Khamraev and Naum Kleiman, editor Andrey Natotsinsky, sound designer Konstantin Chervyakov, executive producer Gleb Piryatinsky, associate producer Yana Yurysheva, and production company mal de mer films.
About Love, directed by Mikhail Bogin, screenplay by Yuri Klepikov, USSR, 1970. This is the film’s first screening in many years with its director, Mikhail Bogin, in attendance, and can well be considered a re-premiere. Bogin will introduce the film and speak with the audience after the screening.
Nostalgia for the Future, directed by Brecht Debacker, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, 2026. Charlotte Rampling’s voice immerses viewers in the diaries and thoughts of Chris Marker, “the most famous author of unknown films,” who spent his life hiding behind pseudonyms and images of cats.
ADGIN PRRX, directed by Norbert Pfaffenbichler, Austria, 2026. Russian premiere. The film’s title is an anagram of Grand Prix, John Frankenheimer’s monumental racing film (1966), which Pfaffenbichler ruthlessly re-edited in the tradition of structural cinema, transforming a classic audience hit starring Yves Montand into a meditation on screen time, speed, and the nature of editing.
Joybubbles, directed by Rachel J. Morrison, USA, 2026. Russian premiere. An extraordinary documentary story about a blind boy who discovered he could control the global telephone network simply by whistling the right tone into a receiver. Thus emerged a subculture that influenced the future of hacking and 20th-century technology.
Sun Ray Over Paris, directed by Andrey Chertov, Bulgaria, 2026. St. Petersburg premiere. A documentary by Andrey Chertov, a member of this year’s National Competition jury, about Luchezar Oshavkov, an artist, sculptor, and singer who has lived in Paris for more than half a century. This is not a biography but a story about inner freedom, memories of one’s homeland, friendship, and the vitality that makes it possible to paint, sing, laugh, and remain amazed by the world at any age.
Still from Summer in Baden-Baden, directed by Anton Zhelnov, 2026
Summer in Baden-Baden, directed by Anton Zhelnov, screenplay by Yuri Saprykin, produced by Pavel Burya and Anastasia Kins, production company Rezervnaya Kopiya, Russia, 2026. St. Petersburg premiere. We are delighted to present Anton Zhelnov’s fiction debut to St. Petersburg audiences—the first screen adaptation of Leonid Tsypkin’s celebrated novella, with Filipp Yankovsky playing both lead roles.
Half-alive Half-dead Unable to Leave. Odyssey 1992, directed by Ilya Khotinenko and Svyatoslava Sagunova, 2026. St. Petersburg premiere. Ilya Khotinenko, director of the cult film Odyssey. Year 1989, joins forces with Svyatoslava Sagunova to present St. Petersburg audiences with an extraordinary docufiction about a film within a film and about cinema itself.
Today Herman Is 122 over 85, directed by Pyotr Shepotinnik. World premiere. A restored, re-edited, and expanded version of the 2003 film, which, 23 years later, seems even fresher and more relevant.
Still from Nostalgia for the Future, directed by Brecht Debacker, 2026
Earth and Sky, directed by Slava Fedorov, 2026. St. Petersburg premiere. A new work by Slava Fedorov, a repeat participant in Message to Man and one of the few filmmakers developing a unique form of their own within non-fiction cinema.
1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, directed by Viktor Kertanov, 2026. St. Petersburg premiere. Another experimental project paired with ADGIN PRRX. A special algorithm compresses the film archive from 1902 to 2021 into two hours, at a speed a thousand times faster than normal. Plots, actors, and editing dissolve into a stream of light, colour, sound, and rhythm in this exploration of the limits of human perception.
Stories of Great Collections, directed by Roman Glova, 2026. St. Petersburg premiere, followed by a meeting with the film crew. Together with collector Nazim Mustafayev, who has assembled more than 2,500 pairs of shoes and outfits dating from the mid-19th century to the present day, the film sets off on a journey through time. The collection became the basis for the online museum Shoe Icons, and some of the items are now part of the Hermitage collection.
Still from Magic Atlas, directed by Sun Xun, 2026
The special screenings programme also includes:
- There’s Enough Happiness for Everyone, directed by Dasha Senicheva, 2026. World premiere.
- I’ll Dream of You, directed by Nikita Aksyonov, Russia and Mexico, 87 min., 2026. St. Petersburg premiere.
- Arzamas. Lullaby, directed by Natalia Budkina, 2026. World premiere.
- Taimanov. The Game, directed by Grigory Ozhegov, 64 min. World premiere.
- Rare, directed by Ksenia Sadovski and Roman Travaille.
- A Beautiful Era, directed by Yu Pin Jia, fiction, 2026. World premiere. Yu Pin Jia’s graduation film.
- Unknown Text by an Unknown Author in an Unknown Language, directed by Yana Osman and Anton Khamchishkin, 2026. International premiere.
- In Search Of The Higher Purpose, directed by Irina Obidova, 27 min., 2026.
- Cave of Dreams, directed by Marina Levashova, 2025, 25 min.
- Once Upon a Summer, directed by Anastasia Emelyanova, 2026.